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Based on responses from over 500 real estate agents and brokers nationwide, referrals ranked as the number one marketing preference among real estate professionals for acquiring new clients, with an overall score of 8.95 (out of 10) for effectiveness. Referrals also ranked number one in the 2011 and 2010 surveys.

Leads from brokers (scored a 5.6) and Events (5.26) ranked second and third, respectively, as most effective marketing strategies, which remained unchanged from 2011. Online lead generation services (5.19) ranked fourth, jumping four positions from the 2011 survey. Email Campaigns (4.92) and Featured Listings (4.91) swapped positions from the 2011 survey and came in fifth and sixth, respectively.

Postcards and Mailers (4.9) were bumped down from sixth in the 2011 survey to seventh. However, it scored half a point higher in 2012. Craigslist (4.3) and Youtube (4.1) ranked eighth and ninth, respectively. Youtube scored 0.6 points higher than in 2011, helping it jump three spots.

In the 2011 survey, Social Media sites like Facebook and Twitter were grouped into one category. In 2012, each site stood on its own. Overall in 2011, Social Media scored a 3.8. In 2012, Facebook (4.0) ranked 10th, Google+ (3.7) ranked 12th, LinkedIn (3.61) ranked 14th and Twitter (3.43) ranked 19th. The average of these scores is 3.69.

Blogging (3.91) ranked 11th in 2012. This represents a 0.62 increase and a jump of two spots from 2011.

“Despite the hype of social media as an effective marketing outlet, real estate professionals once again voted referrals as the most effective and most preferred form of marketing,” said Louis Cammarosano, General Manager of HomeGain. “Also coming in ahead of social media were in person events, like open houses, mailing of post cards and online lead generation services.”

Top Effective Marketing Strategies for Real Estate Professionals in 2012:

Determining whether or not to stage your home prior to putting it on the market can be quite a financial quandary. The costs associated with staging a home can range from $500 for an average-sized house to well into the thousands for larger homes. Is it worth the extra expense?

The short answer is…absolutely! According to HomeGain’s 2011 Home Sale Maximizer survey, which consisted of 600 real estate agents from across the country, 80-percent recommend that homeowners invest in home staging prior to selling. The return on investment (ROI) is nearly 300-percent, according to the survey.

Homes seem to not only sell for more when staged but also sell more quickly. StagedHomes.com, Accredited Staging Professionals (ASP), states that on average 94-percent of staged homes sell within 29 days of hitting the market compared to 145 days for non-staged homes.

Clearly, staging your home should be a strongly considered as a powerful tool to increase the value of your home and sell it faster.

Preliminary Steps: Cleaning and Decluttering

Staging a home simply involves, cleaning, decluttering, rearranging and bringing in furniture to optimize a space. You can do much of this work yourself, which helps save on the cost of staging. The aforementioned HomeGain survey showed a staggering 99-percent of real estate agents recommend cleaning/decluttering prior to selling a home. It offers a 586-percent ROI.

Start by decluttering the house. In many cases, you may need to rent a dumpster or hire a junk removal service to clear out unused clutter. On average, dumpster rental prices range from $125 to $250 or more for a small 10-yard dumpster depending upon where you live and the exact size of the dumpster. Other options include selling household goods online (i.e., eBay or Craigslist), hosting a garage sale, donating goods (i.e., Goodwill or Salvation Army) or recycling.

You’ve heard it said before, “South Florida is the mecca of fraud” and this time scammers are targeting potential renters looking for deals. After reading a few articles on the topic, I thought I needed to post this on the HomeGain Blog. I work with renters coming from around the country looking for seasonal rentals, short terms rentals, and annual rentals. Naturally everybody wants the deal of a lifetime.

When potential renters arrive in Florida they are shocked to see that most homes and condos for rent require a first month, last month, and security deposit; also a great place for a potential tenant to be scammed by shelling out that kind of money all at once, but I’ll save that blog post for another time. Upon arrival to Florida often times the renters are shocked when I tell them the list of properties they wanted to see have all already been rented. What I do is provide a list of rentals that matches their criteria and we go check them out. Most of the time, the client will take my word for it and understand just how hot the rental market is.

Here is where the scammer comes in. Since the client has only worked with me for a day, they will go online themselves to various websites, possibly even Craigslist, not knowing if I am telling them the truth that the rentals they wanted were taken. The scared client calls the telephone # of an ad they seen on Craigslist. The client sees this beautiful 2,000 sq/ft homes with a pool listed at $1,200 a month when actually that same home is listed at $2,400 a month in the MLS. The scammer will use the exact same photos of the house and even make a fake email address. For example, if the name on the deed is Alex Bentley, the scammer will make up an email like alex.bentley@gmail.com. Continue reading this post

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